Cooper Bowman Has Figured Out His Swing
When the Oakland A's traded away Frankie Montas and Lou Trivino to the New York Yankees, a lot of attention was paid to the hard-throwing Luis Medina, the top pitching prospect, Ken Waldichuk, and JP Sears has taken his opportunity with the Oakland Athletics and run with it. But there is another player that came back to Oakland in that deal, and he's starting to figure things out in the minor leagues.
Cooper Bowman, 24, was a fourth round pick by the Yankees in 2021. In August of 2022 he was headed to the A's farm system as a second baseman with the ability to steal bases (he had 35 in 80 games before the trade), and a bit of pop, slugging eight homers so far in that season. He was also walking at an impressive 15.1% clip, though his strikeout rate was at 26.6%.
In 33 games at the same level with the A's, his average remained similar, but his walk rate tanked to just 7%, and his strikeout rate climbed to 29.5%. He spent the 2023 season in Double-A, batting .262 with a .358 OBP, eight home runs, 35 stolen bases, and a 111 wRC+ in 68 games.
This season did not start of well for Bowman back at Double-A Midland. At the end of April he was hitting just .152 with a .277 on-base with two homers and eight steals. He began May by recording a hit in each of the first four games of the month. Then, according to Baseball America, A's farm director Ed Sprague suggested that Bowman move his hands back about two inches in his setup.
Seven of his next nine games were multi-hit efforts, including a run of five straight games, and each of those contests included a Cooper Bowman hit. In fact, Bowman recorded a hit in the first 17 games of May, and the first game he didn't was on May 23 when he came in as a pinch-hitter. After that game he rattled off hits in seven of the final eight games of the month.
Bowman ended up hitting .350 for the month with a .432 OBP, four homers, and 14 stolen bases.
His June began the same way May ended, recording a hit in six straight games. Yet, as we enter the final day of the month, Bowman's production hasn't been at quite the same level. He has hit .250 with a .323 OBP with two home runs, three steals, and he's been caught four times.
His stats on the season are trending well, however. His walk rate (12.3%) is up one percent over last year, and his strikeout rate (20.7%) is the lowest of his career. Outside of three games in the complex league his first year with the Yankees, this has been his best season by wRC+ with a 120 (100 is league average).
We're at the point where overall his counting stats are right where they were a year ago in roughly the same number of games. He's had plenty of seasoning in Midland, and after a slow start to the year, he's kicked it into gear.
Now the big question is when he'll end up getting the call up to Triple-A. Jordan Díaz has been at the keystone in Vegas recently, and he's finishing off June on an absolute tear. He's hit four home runs in his last five games, is 34-for-82 (.415) this month with a .484 on-base, and has also slugged a total of eight homers with 24 RBI.
The one problem for Díaz, and potentially Bowman, is that the guy that's manning second in Oakland is one of the faces of the franchise in Zack Gelof, and will be given every opportunity to work through the struggles he's had to date.
The question for Bowman may become: How quickly can he learn to play another position competently? We may not need an answer to that question until he reaches Triple-A, but it's something that will need to be considered.
With the season Bowman has put up thus far, he'll make an interesting candidate later in the year around the Rule 5 deadline. He will be eligible for the Draft this winter for the first time, and the A's could decide to add him to the 40-man roster to protect him, or they could roll the dice that another team doesn't snatch him up and place him on their big-league roster.
What kind of moves the A's make at the trade deadline and what those returns look like could have a big impact on Bowman's status later this year.
JASON BURKE
Jason is the host of the Locked on A's podcast, and the managing editor of Inside the A's. He's a new father and can't wait to take his son to his first baseball game at the Coliseum.